What is Amazon? | Zack’s notes

An underrated part of strategy is just reducing the business model and its key drivers down to something really simple. And then aggressively aligning activities toward maximising the execution of this over time.

And, for the first four decades or so, Walmart became the best in the world at doing exactly that: using the square footage it had in each store as effectively as possible, stocking it with good quality merchandise at the lowest possible prices, and maintaining sufficient inventory to satisfy the resulting customer demand. All of the complexity and innovation that happened in the background was in service of each store’s merchandising efforts. The satellite communication system helped headquarters make sure that inventory was always in stock, helped one store learn from another store’s experimentation with product assortment and pricing. The trucking fleet delivered the inventory quickly and efficiently in order to make sure that stores had the inventory they needed for their customers, and cost-effectively so they could maintain the lowest possible prices. Computerized POS systems let customers check out quickly, or, in the event that they had to bring something back, return items as painlessly as possible.